


The Five Faces of Morticia

by quietprofanity



Category: Pocket Mortys, Rick and Morty
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Multi, Rule 63, Stealth Crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-11 00:54:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12923847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietprofanity/pseuds/quietprofanity
Summary: Portraits of five very different Morticias from across the multiverse.





	1. Dimension G-321F

**Author's Note:**

> I chose not to use archive warnings in this case because I'm not necessarily sure how far I'm going with certain concepts, but for the most part just assume that anything you need a warning about right now is the type of offensive humor you can normally watch on the show.
> 
> Anyway, consider this chapter something of an amuse-bouche before the main courses. The future chapters are going to be longer/more plotty. Enjoy!

_**Morty Deck Entry:** This Morty is the twin sister of Morty wearing a baseball cap. She can often be seen standing in the background making references to other shows._

Every Rick, including Morticia’s own grandfather, prided themselves on being unfazed by everything that the multiverse had to offer. Despite that, whenever Rick G-321F had to travel to The Citadel, his two younger grandchildren trailing behind him, the three of them never failed to elicit stares and whispers. Mortys with multiple eyes, alien appendages and bizarre skin tones were old hat to all of them, but there were always a few Ricks who would do a double-take and whisper “Twins!” to the nearest Rick whenever they crossed paths.

It bothered Morty more than it did Morticia. Granted, her brother tended to get annoyed pretty easily whenever they met other Ricks and Mortys, to get resentful of the assumptions they made. He shared the other Mortys’ face and their stutter. Like a significant minority of Mortys he had a unique variation -- his favorite pinetree hat that hid his Big Dipper-shaped birthmark. Yet Morty didn’t seem to share their personality, either. He was very smart -- precociously so, more outwardly combative and less eager to please. If Morticia hadn’t been so fascinated by their grandfather’s adventures, so impervious to all but his worst insults, she wondered if Morty would have traveled with the two of them at all, would have turned up his nose at the allure of space travel for long nights hunting cryptids in the park.

“Um, you happen to know a guy named Stan?” a particularly blunt Rick with a set of coke-bottle glasses asked their grandfather once. “Or two guys named Stan? Because I’m wondering if some weird inter-dimensional cuckoo put its eggs in your Beth.”

“Ugh, fuck you for putting that image in my head, Four-Eyes,” was their grandfather’s response. When Morty tried to ask him later what the other Rick was talking about, their grandfather waved his hand and told Morty not to think about it.

He tended to say that a lot, particularly in response to Morticia’s myriad questions.

“Grandpa Rick, is there a planet populated by unicorns? How about candy?” Morticia slapped her palms against her cheeks and gasped. “What about an entire dimension of candy unicorns?”

Rick rolled his eyes as he tightened the screws on his latest invention in the garage. “Morticia, you’ve been to the Cannibal Nazi Space-Rapist dimension. Hasn’t your sense of childlike wonder been thoroughly killed yet? A-A-Are you really still gunning for the chance to live out your Lisa Frank fantasy?”

“I will always believe!” Morticia declared, one hand clasped over her heart and the other stiff in a salute.

Despite her devotion, a more prominent question started to itch at the back of Morticia’s skull, one she couldn’t stop asking no matter how many times she was brutally shot down.

“So, why haven’t we seen any other Morticias yet?” Morticia asked her grandfather on one of the days she was forced to sit in the back of the cruiser. “We see, like, _so_ many Mortys all the time. Who’s going to finally even out the gender disparity and set up the Morticia mixer, am I right, fellas?”

“W-W-Why do you even want to hang out with them?” Morty asked, his arms crossed and his mouth turned out in a pout. “I-I’ve met at least a hundred Mortys and none of them want to talk about paranormal science or alternate history or temporal fields. It’s always Jessica or porn or inter-dimensional cable. It sucks!”

Morticia scoffed. “Well, some of us _like_ meeting new people who are also themselves, OK?”

“Will the both of you shut the fuck up?” Rick complained. “I-I-Isn’t it enough that I drag two of you idiots around everywhere? Go hang out with more yellow-shirted pains in the ass on your own time!”

Yet as Morty (and Summer, and even Beth sometimes) often reminded Rick, Morticia didn’t know the meaning of the word “No.” At the Citadel, at Blips and Chips, even at the Jerryboree, Morticia constantly kept her eyes peeled for others like her.

Then one day, she found one.

The three of them had been at an interdimensional trading outpost when Morticia caught sight of the pair haggling over some complicated and mean-looking space-rifles with a translucent, jelly-like alien. At first, Morticia didn’t recognize the other Rick’s companion as her double. She wore her hair a lot longer -- tied it back with a bow instead of a headband -- and wore a yellow shirt/and blue jeans combination like Morty instead of Morticia’s plain yellow dress. (Morticia had always meant to take up knitting sweaters, but never could find the time for it.)

“I found one!” Morticia crowed. She barrelled off in the other Morticia’s direction, tackling her with excited hugs before her grandfather or brother could protest.

“Rick F-827,” the other Rick said by way of introduction as the two of them approached. “I take it you also get stopped a lot by easily-impressed idiots?”

“Rick G-321-F. Tell me about it,” her grandfather said with a roll of his eyes.

“Well, we,” Rick F-827 burped, “we both know we don’t actually want to talk to each other, so ...” He tapped his granddaughter on the back of her head. “Yo, ding-dong. We got a revolutionary leader to meet. Give the Mab-- er, the Girl Morty your card so you can … I don’t know … talk about how you both have a vagina later.”

“Fuck you, Rick,” Morticia F-827 responded, but she did reach into her back pocket and pull out a card, slipped it into Morticia’s hand before following her grandfather through a portal.

Morticia took a look at the card. The front read “Morticia Smith F-827” and also featured a number for the space phone and a crude drawing of herself waving. The back of the card featured a short FAQ for Mortys.

“Q. Wow, you’re a girl?  
A. Yes.

Q. Have you always been a girl?  
A. Yes.

Q. Does that mean everyone else in our family is the opposite gender?  
A. No.

Q. Do you want to make out/have sex just to see what it’s like?  
A. I do not.”

To Morticia’s disappointment, her double wasn’t much more talkative when she actually got her on the space phone two weeks later. She’d been so excited for the call, had thought up over fifty questions to ask Morticia F-827 -- everything from her favorite band to her favorite color to her allergies -- had written them in a notebook with ample space for detailed answers.

“I’m sorry,” Morticia F-827 said after being asked to rank her favorite _Ball Fondlers_ episodes. “I-I-I am glad to talk to another girl me -- I’ve only met a couple others. I just kind of get tired of answering the same questions all the time.”

“Hmm.” Morticia laid on the bed on her side of the room, chewed on the tip of her pen for a few seconds. “You know what? Who needs a bunch of silly questions? Why don’t you just tell me a story about yourself?”

“What kind of story?”

“I don’t know … something with drama! Something you don’t think any other Morticia has ever experienced but totally encapsulates you. Oh, and I want the phone numbers of those other Morticias when you’re done!”

A loud sigh crackled through the space phone. “W-Where are you putting these stories when you’re done? The Internet?”

“Oh, no!” Morticia exclaimed. “Just an overly-elaborate scrapbook of my own making.”

“Really?” Morticia F-827 asked. “Why?”

“For … fun?” Morticia shrugged, even though F-827 couldn’t see her. “Creativity? Everything’s better with unicorn stickers?”

“Y-You better swear to me this isn’t going on the Internet.”

“I swear. Well, not in any of our universes, anyway.”

“O-OK, so …” Morticia F-827 coughed loudly. “There’s … there’s this girl that I really like.”

End Part One.


	2. Dimension F-827

_**Morty Deck Entry:** This Morty is from a dimension where her mother’s womb was 32.54 degrees warmer during the early stages of gastrulation. The moon was also 384,900 km away. That matters, folks._

For some reason -- possibly because at this point she had a captive audience -- Summer waited until she was mid-way through the manicure to start talking. At Morticia’s request Summer had pulled her vanity table away from the wall and taken down the mirror so they could both sit on either side of it -- Summer on the bench and Morticia on the end of Summer’s bed. The tools and polish were spread out on a hand towel between them, and Summer was right at the point where she was pushing down Morticia’s malformed, worn-away-by-adventuring-and-stress cuticles when she spoke.

“So ... I’m just having a conversation with you, not trying to judge or anything.” Summer put down the flat metal spade and picked up curved scissors. “But, like, how do you see tonight going?”

Morticia winced as Summer cut off a piece of dead skin from her left-hand ring finger. “I-I don’t know. Jessica just asked me if I wanted to hang out with her at the carnival tonight. Y’know … like, friends and stuff.”

Summer put down the scissors and picked up a bottle of hand moisturizer. “And are you OK with that?” she asked as she squirted a generous helping into her palm. “Like, what if you show up and she just asks you to tag along with her and Tricia or something?”

“W-well, that’s OK.” Morticia bit her bottom lip nervously before holding out her hands to let Summer rub the moisturizer on them. “I mean … sometimes love comes slowly, y-y’know? Like-like you might see someone as a friend but then you realize as you hang out that they’re actually really nice and m-maybe you want to date them? Th-that happens, right?”

Summer sighed. “What color did you want, again?”

Morticia pointed to the pale pink bottle of nail polish about a shade off from her actual skin tone. Summer picked it up and shook it.

“Look, I don’t really have good advice on the whole asking out girls specifically thing, so maybe your best bet is to worm your way in via the friendzone, but I’m just worrying that you’re putting all your emotional eggs in one basket with this Jessica chick,” Summer grabbed Morticia’s right hand and started painting. “Like, how long have you had a crush on this girl? How many times have you tried to ask her out and whiffed it?”

Morticia could feel her face turn red. “So what? You’re saying I shouldn’t try at all?”

“No, but -- and I know that you absolutely do not want to hear this -- I think you should just come clean with her about how you feel tonight.”

“Are you kidding?” Morticia shrieked. “W-What if she freaks out?”

“Then she sucks and you shouldn’t waste your time on her,” Summer switched over to Morticia’s left hand. “Besides, if she’s some homophobe she’s probably going to freak out worse later down the line. She might feel like you tricked her or something.”

“What if she _tells people_ , Summer? Have you ever thought about that?”

“Hmmm,” Summer finished up painting Morticia’s index finger, then shrugged and moved onto the middle. “Yeah, I guess that’s a thing to worry about. But what’s your alternative? Making yourself miserable over your unrequited crush until college?”

“No, b-but --”

The door banged open and Morticia clammed up as Rick strode into the room. “Hey girls! What are you doing? Bonding over manicures? Wow, don’t-don’t try to avoid stereotypes or anything.”

“Uh, you want to knock once in awhile, Grandpa Rick?” Summer asked as she screwed the cap back on the nail polish and started waving a hand-fan over Morticia’s nails.

Rick plopped himself down on Summer’s bed next to Morticia. “Scoot over. What color did you get?”

Morticia held out her hands to him with her fingers splayed out. “I-It’s coral, I think.”

“No, coral’s a lot redder than that,” Summer corrected. “You picked ballet slippers.”

“Oooh, _ballet slippers_? Wow, reminds me of the music box I bought your mother when she was five. That gets chicks wet. Then again,” Rick grabbed onto Morticia’s right hand and held it close to his face, “you probably would have cut them shorter if you thought you were going to get lucky.”

“Ew, gross!” Morticia snapped her hand back toward herself. “I-I-I’m just going with Jessica as a friend tonight, OK Rick?”

Rick rolled his eyes and splayed his hands out on the vanity table. “Yo, Sum-sum. Hook me up while I offer some advice to Morticia.”

Summer recoiled. “Yuck, I’m not working on your gross old man hands.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll cut my own nails if aging offends your delicate and oh-so-open-minded sensibilities.”

Rick reached for clippers but Summer snatched them up first. “I’ll do it if you admit you’re only in here because Paul doesn’t get as worked up by your teasing as Dad and you’re really fucking bored.”

Morticia let out one of her loud, almost braying, laughs before she could stop herself. It was six months after the wedding and, like everyone else in the family besides Beth, Morticia had never really connected with Paul Fleishman beyond thinking that he was basically nice but a bit boring. Still, Rick missing Jerry in his own fucked up way had become one of the few things that Morticia and Summer could needle Rick about when they weren’t competing over his attention.

Rick frowned at the both of them. “Yes, fine. You’re both marginally less tiresome than watching _Shark Tank_ and eating hummus with the human equivalent of a manila folder. You got me.”

Summer picked up a pale blue bottle of polish, a shit-eating grin on her face. “How about this one?”

“Y-Yeah Rick,” Morticia chimed in. “I-It matches your eyes.”

“Ha ha. You girls are charmers. It’s a real--” Rick burped through the word “--real fucking mystery why you can’t hold down a long-term relationship with someone of either gender between the two of you.”

Summer took his hand and started cutting his nails. “Seriously, though. You want a color?”

“Black. Let me have a late-life crisis throwback to my Flesh Curtains days. Anyway,” Rick turned to Morticia as Summer cut and buffed down his nails. “The thing to remember is that no matter what happens tonight absolutely none of this matters. Love is fleeting. Teenage romances are the idiot flailings borne from inexperience and hormones and one day you’re either going to look back on this with embarrassment or as a vague memory that has no bearing on your everyday life.”

“Y-Yeah?” Morticia bristled. “Well, I think that’s just something miserable people say. Some people do marry their high school sweethearts.”

“Yeah,” Rick burped. “They end up like your parents.”

Summer yelled at Rick, but Morticia had already stormed out of the room.

~*~*~

As she sat in the passenger seat of her mother’s Honda an hour later, Morticia still stewed over what Rick and Summer had said. On the one hand, Rick wouldn’t be Rick if he didn’t try to punch holes in any nascent optimism she might harbor, but she resented how her grandfather acted like Morticia making out with random green- and blue-skinned alien girls was all in good fun but her actually having a girlfriend was somehow a massive drain on him. And who was Summer to tell her that she was too emotional over Jessica? As if Summer didn’t constantly get crushes on guys and then flip the fuck out whenever they crashed and burned?

“How are you doing, sweetie?”

Morticia peeled her gaze away from the car window and back at her mother. Beth’s eyes were mostly on the road but she gave Morticia a quick glance and a tight, unsure smile.

“OK, I guess,” Morticia said.

“Are you excited about tonight?”

“Yeah, sure,” Morticia lied, wishing she felt more confident than she did. “I mean, I’m going to a carnival, right? Those are always fun.”

Beth’s smile was bigger, more genuine this time. “You still like carnival rides after flying through space with your grandpa?”

“Oh yeah. I-I mean, you’ve still got to enjoy the simple pleasures in life.”

“Sure,” Beth said. “I hope you like it, though, being his special little helper.”

Morticia felt an all-too-familiar knot form in her stomach. Her mother had said things like that to her before, and after the first few times Morticia heard it she realized that it came from a place of wistful jealousy. She guessed it was natural that Beth would see Morticia disappear with Rick into a portal or sit next to him in the space cruiser and wonder why she was never asked to go, never asked to be that young girl constantly at his side. In her most resentful moments, Morticia sometimes wanted to just break down and tell Beth the truth: Morticia got to go on adventures with Rick not because she was smart or special but because she was an easily impressionable human shield. Possibly an imperfect one, too -- Morticia had gone with Rick on journeys to several other dimensions and the other versions of him had always been accompanied by a boy who looked like her named Morty. Even when they finally met a Morticia, he hadn’t really been a girl but a Morty who’d ended up on the wrong end of a scientific accident. It always made her think that Rick hadn’t chosen her over Beth or Summer because of her personality, but because this universe was only a fucked up reflection of some true one and she was a random, incorrect variation on the boy she was meant to be.

They were approaching the carnival now, the lights of the tilt-a-whirl and ferris wheel spinning beyond the Honda’s dashboard. Beth drove as close to the carnival grounds as she could without getting helplessly mired in the mess of foot traffic, grabbed onto Morticia’s hand before she could open the door.

“Morticia?” Beth asked. “You know no matter what happens with that girl tonight that Paul and I love and support you, right? Your father, too.”

Morticia looked dumbfoundedly at her mother for a minute. She had a brief flashback to the night she had come out to her immediate family -- how Jerry had made a bunch of terrible jokes afterward that strained the limits of how many words could be rhymed with lesbian, only stopping after everyone in the family yelled at him to shut up. She thought of how she weirdly missed that compared to Paul’s “You know I will care for and respect you whatever your orientation.” Those were the right words to say, she supposed. And yet ...

“Y-Yeah, I know,” Morticia said, grateful when her mother genuinely smiled.

There were a lot of people arriving and milling about the carnival. Morticia filed into what she thought was a line, was about half-way through the mob when she felt a buzzing from her front pocket. She pulled out her phone, her heart skipping a beat when she saw Jessica’s name on the push alert.

_Hey! I’m by the hotdog stand!_ Jessica’s text read, a smiley and a hotdog emoji following for extra emphasis. _Can’t wait to see you!_

Morticia kept repeating the words “Can’t wait to see you!” in her head as she entered the grounds of the carnival, stopping momentarily to buy several ride tickets before heading inside.

There were several booths for different types of carnival food -- funnel cake, fried oreos, one weirdo selling corn on the cob dipped in caramel and/or chocolate. Still, it didn’t take Morticia long to find Jessica -- she was leaning against the side of the hotdog stand, her eyes locked on her phone.

She’s alone, Morticia thought. Immediately all of her doubts about the night to come washed away.

Morticia started to call Jessica’s name, but then thought of something better. She took out her own phone, typed “look up!” and resisted the urge to add one of the kissing emojis -- she settled on a winking one instead -- before hitting “send.”

Jessica looked up and laughed, her pretty pink lips widening around her perfect white teeth. “Hey, Morticia! How long were you there?”

Morticia hoped she didn’t look too desperate as she rushed to Jessica’s side. “Oh, n-not long at all. S-So, is anyone else coming with us or are we flying solo tonight?”

Shit, Morticia immediately thought. Fuck, that was way too strong and Jessica was going to look at her funny and the whole night would be ruined and …

Jessica giggled. “Just you and me, Morticia. What do you want to do first?”

Morticia’s eyes widened. Holy shit, this was really happening. “Um, I-I-I don’t know anything … anything you want.”

“Okay …” Jessica turned around in a circle, her eyes surveying the park. “So … this is a little childish, maybe, but I still like those teacup rides …”

Morticia wasn’t crazy about them, but she was excited enough that she was spending a night with Jessica -- whether as a date or not -- that she didn’t really care. Plus, when they got on the ride, when they gripped onto the wheel in the center and sent it slowly spinning, Morticia got a thrill out of the few times Jessica careened into her.

Morticia tried to replicate that thrill when she suggested they could go on the Hurricane together next, and then got a bit punished for it when the centripetal force of the spinning ride didn’t so much cozily push Jessica’s legs against her own in the car they shared as careen Jessica into Morticia’s body hard enough that Morticia found it difficult to breathe. The modest roller coaster was better, but Jessica still found herself a little queasy afterward. They took a ride on the carousel that Morticia suspected they both pretended to enjoy more than they actually did. Then they bought some corn dogs, fried oreos and lemonade for dinner -- their earlier queasiness forgotten at that point.

This is fun, Morticia thought as she ate the grease-soaked cookie while they walked through the fairgrounds together. I’m having fun.

Although to be honest, Morticia was still a bit nervous about everything. In one sense, the not-date was going pretty well. Jessica didn’t talk very much, despite Morticia’s best efforts to get her to open up, but she seemed to like it when Morticia told her about her adventures with Rick, and Jessica was definitely having fun on the rides. But something still seemed … off. Like there was some sort of weird invisible wall around Jessica that Morticia couldn’t penetrate. Morticia was thinking about that as she reached into the box she was holding and pulled out the last cookie.

“Oh my God!” Jessica exclaimed. “I just noticed now you got your nails done.”

Morticia blushed a bit. Jeez, she’d totally forgotten about that. And all this time she’d hoped it would impress Jessica. “Y-Yeah, no biggie. My older sister helped me out.”

“They’re pretty. I really like the color, too. It’s subtle … it suits you.”

“Th-thanks,” Morticia said, although she felt a little sick to her stomach again for some reason. She’d wanted that compliment, hadn’t she? Why didn’t she feel better about it?

Jessica suddenly gave her a strange look, her smile faded as if she too were suddenly disappointed. What was going on?

Morticia looked around quickly. “Hey, um … wanna go on the giant slide?”

“Ecch, I kind of worry about where those blankets have been,” Jessica shuddered. “Plus, I don’t want my skirt to fly up.”

“Ha-ha! Yeah, that would be bad,” Morticia said. She kept her eyes glued to the ground, wondered if Jessica could see how her cheeks flushed.

Jessica didn’t say anything for a few painful minutes. They kept walking. Morticia tried to run through her internal database of fun, not-as-painful-and-disturbing-as-usual memories from her adventures with Rick -- maybe a cute story about Dogworld -- when Jessica grabbed her on the arm.

“So, I know this is super-crazy,” Jessica pointed a thumb behind herself. “But wanna go in there?”

Morticia looked in the direction Jessica was pointing, felt a lump suddenly form in her throat. “The-The Tunnel of Love? R-R-Really?”

“I mean, you see these things all the time on cartoons or whatever but I don’t think I’ve ever seen them before in real life,” Jessica said. “What’s in there really, right? Is it like a bunch of Valentine’s Day stuff or is it like some sort of low-key haunted house?”

“I-I-I …” Morticia tried to finish the sentence, to say that she didn’t know, but the more she tried the more she seemed to stutter.

“Um …” Jessica bit her lip nervously. “So … are you in?”

Morticia nodded, because that was all she could do at this point.

The line seemed to be going too fast and yet every minute Morticia was in it felt achingly long. When she and Jessica were seated in a boat together, the operator -- a cute, butch teenager with a short haircut, shot the both of them a wink. Neither Morticia or Jessica acknowledged it, stared straight ahead -- Morticia on the left, Jessica on the right -- as the boat started to move and they drifted off into the darkness.

Morticia looked around, trying to force her eyes to adjust. It was darker in the tunnel than she’d expected; it took her a few minutes before she could even register the movement of the water beneath the boat. They flowed up toward a thin waterfall that parted as their boat passed through, not allowing them to get wet. Then the boat turned the corner and Morticia saw coming up on her left -- 

“Dinosaurs?” Morticia’s mouth dropped open as they passed by cave paintings and a thin caveman brandishing a bone. “W-What the hell? How is this romantic?”

“Morticia?”

Morticia blinked and looked back at Jessica. She was staring straight ahead, her face and neck stiff.

“I --” Jessica coughed, her chin rolling, but her face tight and still looking forward. “I want to thank you for coming with me tonight. You know, Brad … he doesn’t really like rides. I mean, if I bought him here he would usually try to win me prizes. I keep telling him the games are rigged, but … y’know, it’s hard to get that type of thing through to him.”

Morticia’s mouth felt dry. Jessica hadn’t brought up her on-again, off-again boyfriend all night, and Morticia had hoped she hadn’t been thinking about him. “I-It’s OK. I’m-I’m having a lot of fun.”

Jessica took a deep breath. The boat turned right this time, plunged back into darkness.

“Oh, fuck it.”

Morticia only just registered those words before she felt Jessica suddenly grasp onto her, her fingernails digging into Morticia’s shoulders and her lips pressing hard and tight against Morticia’s own.

Jessica pulled away, and Morticia took the opportunity to hyperventilate for real now. There was some light in the tunnel now -- she and Jessica were passing by some sort of animatronic thing but Morticia was just staring at Jessica’s face, staring at the way Jessica’s pink, soft mouth was open and panting -- taking in the shock in Jessica’s eyes even though she had just done this thing.

Morticia closed her eyes as Jessica leaned in again. Her mouth was open this time, tongue taking the opportunity to enter and explore Morticia’s mouth. It was strange the way Jessica’s tongue teased the underside of Morticia’s and pressed against Morticia’s teeth. The kiss was almost rough, and Jessica didn’t taste sweet like in Morticia’s fantasies. In fact, Morticia couldn’t even gauge if this was the best or even better kisses she ever had but it was Jessica and thus it was wonderful.

Jessica pushed herself closer to Morticia, and Morticia took the opportunity to run her hands over Jessica’s slim waist. Morticia felt an all-too-familiar tension between her legs, suspected with more than a little embarrassment that she was already getting wet.

Do it now or you’ll never get the opportunity again, a small voice inside Morticia said. Morticia reached her left hand up, cupped Jessica’s breast over her shirt.

Jessica suddenly pulled herself away, her mouth open in horror.

“O-O-Oh God, I-I-I’m sorry,” Morticia blubbered. “I-I-I’m an idiot. I should have asked you first. O-Or not done that at all. I-I-I …”

“It’s OK,” Jessica said -- although her voice was very small, almost a whisper. “I’m not upset … really.”

Morticia didn’t believe her. The boat floated by a tableau of Egyptian pyramids and a sphinx -- seriously, she didn’t understand the aesthetics of this place. Morticia stared at it, trying not to completely wig out and start screaming at herself for being so stupid again. Then she felt Jessica’s hand on her waist, reaching below her shirt and up over her bra.

What the hell? Morticia thought, but she kept her lips shut tight and gripped the bench chair beneath them as Jessica eased closer to her. Jessica’s breath was hot on Morticia’s neck; she planted soft kisses on it as she felt Morticia up. Morticia leaned back her head, a moan forced its way out of her tightly closed lips.

Then, as suddenly as it had started, it was all over. Jessica pulled herself away, edged herself to the other side of the boat. Morticia was about to ask what had happened, but then she saw the lights at the end of the tunnel. The ride was coming to an end.

Jessica exited the boat quickly, not even waiting to see if Morticia was following as she walked away. Morticia almost had to sprint to keep up as Jessica walked down the steps exiting the ride, trailed off to the edge of the carnival. Jessica stopped when she reached the sidewalk, turned around with her hand clamped over her mouth as Morticia caught up.

“Morticia, I’m sorry. I thought I could do this, but I can’t.”

Morticia stared back at Jessica. She was sure she must look as stupid as she felt, her brain addled by fear and the remnants of arousal. “Can’t … can’t do what?”

Jessica sighed. It was a warm summer night, but she rubbed the sides of her arms as if trying to heat them up. “Okay, look. Brad and I have been on a break for … awhile. And I was talking with Tricia and … well, Tricia’s tastes are pretty out there. But she asked me if I ever thought about being with another girl and I said no at the time. And then I later realized that, hey, I didn’t actually know if I did or not. And I figured, well, I knew you’ve always had a crush on me. If I was going to experiment why not let it be with someone who would enjoy it, right? But when I did kiss you I … well, I’m not sure how to put this without seeming really mean, but I … I just don’t think this is for me. I’m sorry.”

Morticia’s legs felt weak all of a sudden. She meant to crouch down but ending up plopping ungracefully on the dirt and grass. She clamped her hands over her mouth. Don’t cry, Morticia told herself. Whatever you do don’t fucking cry.

“Oh, no. No no.” Jessica crouched down and laid a hand on Morticia’s shoulder. “Look, this really is one of those ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ types of things. Please don’t get upset.”

Morticia wrenched away from Jessica’s touch. “H-H-How am I supposed to not get upset? Y-Y-You fucking used me!” Morticia knew that was an exaggerated, histrionic thing to say even as she said it, but at this point she wanted to lash out, wanted to hurt Jessica the way she had hurt her. She stared at the ground, trying not to look at Jessica.

“‘Used you’?” Jessica spat. “You kissed me back. You felt me up first. For god’s sake, Morticia, you’ve had a picture of me in your locker for the past year. If anyone’s using anyone here …”

“I’m in love with you!”

“Bullshit! You barely know me.”

Morticia’s head snapped up. She wanted to scream at Jessica, call her a whore and a bitch and all those other words that she knew she’d be the worse person for using. And yet when she looked at Jessica she saw that Jessica had tears in her eyes. Morticia realized she’d never heard Jessica yell before this. She always knew Jessica was a nice and beautiful person.

“I-I-I wanted to know you better,” Morticia said. “I really did. I think about it all the time.”

Jessica wiped away the tears and the makeup that had run down with it below her eyes. “Morticia, I’m nobody special.”

That’s not true, Morticia thought. She felt an awful feeling in the pit of her stomach. “D-Did you like tonight with me? I-If I were a guy and we had gone on this date together, w-would you like me then?”

“I mean … I asked you on this date because I wanted to figure out how I felt about girls, so …”

“Right, right …” Morticia said. God, this was such a nightmare.

Jessica approached Morticia again. Morticia turned her face away and Jessica took the opportunity to kiss her cheek. Morticia sniffled hard. God, she hated how much she enjoyed that still.

“We’ll see each other at school tomorrow,” Jessica said. “I promise I won’t tell anyone else about tonight, OK? Not even my closest friends.”

“I know you won’t,” Morticia said. She wondered why she had worried earlier that Jessica would tell the school about her crush. That didn’t really seem like something she would do, now that Morticia had thought about it.

“Get home safe. OK, Morticia?”

“Get home safe …” Morticia repeated, hating herself as her eyes followed Jessica’s back as she walked away.

~*~*~

The wait for her mother to come pick her up felt agonizingly long, but when she saw the red car drive up Morticia was just happy that she’d been able in that time to hold herself together.

“How’d it go?” Beth asked as Morticia got in the car.

Morticia shook her head. “I’m not her type.”

“Oh sweetie, I’m so sorry.” She took Morticia in a hug, but Morticia didn’t hug her back.

They drove the rest of the way home in silence -- at times like this Morticia was glad that Beth tended to dislike talking about feelings. When they arrived, the rest of the family was in the living room. Rick and Summer sat on the couch together -- Rick half-watching TV while Summer texted. Paul was reading a book on the sofa chair, looked up from it as Beth and Morticia walked in.

“Hey kiddo, how’d your little shindig go with the --” Paul stopped talking. Morticia looked up and saw it was because Beth was waving her hand across her neck and shaking her head. “Oh, didn’t go so well? That’s too bad.”

Paul bent down to hug her, and Morticia felt a deep resentment roiling in her stomach. When Paul stopped he placed his hands on her shoulders. “I just want you to know, that if you need to talk about it, your mother and I will be here, OK? We’ll understand.”

Something inside Morticia snapped. “Y-Y-Yeah, w-w-well you know what, Paul? Th-That’s the problem with you, OK? Y-You always _understand_.”

Morticia realized immediately in the painful silence that followed how completely ridiculous that sounded. She still got pissed off when Summer let out a snort that she’d been trying to stifle back and Rick dissolved into laughter soon after.

“What the fuck, Morticia?” Summer asked through helpless giggles.

“Oh man --” Rick wheezed. “Oh man, th-that’s fucking incredible.”

Morticia made sure to stomp on each stair as she retreated to her room, tried to ignore Beth’s attempts to stifle her own laughter as she scolded Summer and Rick.

~*~*~

When Morticia had gotten to her room, she let herself cry -- and really cry, too. She wailed from her throat, shoved her face into her pillow and didn’t care how many tears and how much snot she soaked into it. Morticia had struck out with girls before -- had failed more than she’d succeeded, actually. Yet those rejections with girls she had only recently met didn’t sting like this one, didn’t make her feel like every bit of happiness and hope she’d ever felt had been forcibly ripped out of her chest and ground up into tiny bits.

Don’t put all your emotional eggs in one basket. That’s what Summer had said, right? Fuck her. Summer didn’t care and love the same way Morticia did.

God, Morticia wiped her eyes. Why was she thinking these things? She was such a loser ...

Morticia’s doorknob rattled. Then she heard some metal shuffling. She shot up from her pillow, tried to wipe her face on her cheek. “Rick, I-I-I know you’re picking the lock!”

The door opened anyway. Morticia glared at Rick and then immediately burrito-wrapped herself in her covers. “Go away!” she yelled, her voice muffled by the fabric.

“Hey. Hey. Calm down, Morticia. I just want to talk to you for a bit.” Morticia felt the bed springs shift beneath her as Rick sat down next to her. He chuckled. “I-I-I mean, if it makes you feel better I’m not going to _understand_ or anything.”

Motricia unraveled herself from the covers, grabbed her pillow and made a high-pitched “oooooh!” noise as she started beating Rick with it.

“Hey! Hey!” Rick grabbed onto the pillow. “Calm down already. I-I’m just trying to get you to lighten up.”

“Y-Y-Yeah, well, I don’t want to ‘lighten up’ right now, OK?” Morticia said, embarrassed as she let out a sniffle. “I-I know you don’t care about love or whatever, but I do and … and …”

Morticia realized she was hyperventilating, realized she was basically a hair’s breadth from crying again. She could tell that left Rick surprised and at a loss -- already he was reeling back from her as if she were some cat that had started hissing at him. Morticia covered her face with her hands.

“I knew it was a longshot,” Morticia said.

“Morticia, I can’t hear you with your hands in front of your mouth.”

Morticia glared as she moved her hands to wipe her eyes. “I said, ‘I knew it was a longshot.’ I knew Jessica probably didn’t like girls. I know most high school romances don’t work or don’t make long marriages. I-I just … I hoped what I felt was real. I …” Morticia stared down and to her right at her bedsheets, rubbed her right hand against her left. “I-I hoped I wouldn’t be like my parents.”

Rick sighed. “So that’s what this is really about?”

Morticia nodded. “I think so …”

Rick reached under Morticia’s chin and raised her head up to look at him. “Morticia, I didn’t tell you all that shit about teenage romances being hot garbage because I thought it would really convince you not to believe in love or whatever. I-I-I mean if I knew how to convince anyone of that I would have talked your mother out of both of her shitty marriages before they started.”

“R-Rick!”

“Let me finish. I told you that because teenagers _are_ idiots. You’re an idiot. That girl’s an idiot. Your sister’s an idiot. Every one of your classmates is an idiot. It doesn’t matter how many tragic YA romances you read or cheesy movie musicals you watch or high school alternate universe fanfiction you get off to when you think nobody can hear you -- don’t look at me that way, Morticia, I’m making a point here. The only function of bullshit high school romances is to practice hurting now so it hurts less later when it actually matters.”

Rick stood up from the bed, placed his hands on his hips as he finished his speech. “This is going to suck tonight. It’s probably going to suck for about a month -- m-maybe even longer than that, I don’t know. Y-You’re pretty emotional. But you’ll eventually get over it. And when you do … hell, I-I’ll take you to a planet where all the aliens are girls and you can drown your sorrows in some club on the other side of the galaxy that doesn’t card. There. You feel better?”

Morticia sighed miserably and shook her head. “No.”

“Of course you don’t.” Rick reached into his labcoat. He pulled out his flask, started to open it. “Whatever. It’ll be better next time. M-Maybe you’ll even get to kiss a girl.”

“I-I got to kiss Jessica.”

Rick stopped drinking mid-sip. He wiped his mouth with the back of his palm as he stared at Morticia. “I thought you said she was straight.”

“Y-Yeah, but she didn’t know and um …” Morticia smiled and scratched the back of her head “I-I guess I was kind of like her experiment.”

Rick put his flask away. Morticia flinched as he bent down and laid both of his palms on either side of Morticia’s face. “S-So you’re telling me that you -- th-that you, my lesbian grandaughter -- got to kiss a _straight girl_?”

Morticia laughed despite herself, her cheeks turning red. “I … I got to second base, too, actually.”

“Oh shiiiiiiiiit, bitch! Look at this playa here,” Rick held up both of his hands for Morticia to high-five, which she did eagerly. “I knew someone in this family had to pick up my game. Who gives a shit if she doesn’t want to be your girlfriend? Y-You just lived the fucking dream, baby!”

Morticia laughed as Rick tousled her hair. “I-I guess so …”

Rick told her he was going to peace out and Morticia curled back under the covers, ready to go to sleep. It was kind of weird, she supposed, how much better Rick made her feel. As she started to drift off, she remembered a day a couple of months ago when she and Rick had stepped into an alternate dimension and run into some Gromflamites working for the Galactic Federation who had known their own version of Rick, who had been surprised to see him with a granddaughter. After the chase, after they’d taken a breather and gone out for some ice cream, Morticia told him what she’d always suspected about her being the incorrect version of someone who was really supposed to exist.

“Pfft! Whatever,” Rick had said. “There’s no correct version of reality. And even if there were you and I would have to function inside this one, dipshit.”

Morticia had been angry because that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She wanted Rick to tell her that it didn’t matter because he loved her or something, or maybe even that she was special for being a girl. Morticia realized then that Paul probably would have told her something like that, and that if she spoke to him before the date he would have told her that everything would go well with Jessica.

And Morticia also realized she wouldn’t have believed it, because on a fundamental level she really didn’t believe the date would go well. Maybe it was good that Rick and Summer had told her what she needed to hear, maybe in the end all that she could do was take what was good about tonight and move on. Maybe thinking more like her grandpa, thinking more like a pragmatist instead of a hopeless optimist, was what she needed to do…

Morticia only barely registered the door banging open and her room light suddenly being turned on before she felt a pair of hands clamp around her ankles.

“M-Morticia!” Rick said with a drunken slur as pulled her behind him. “M-Morticia, c’mon … w-we gotta go. There’s a planetary alignment happening in the nearest solar system. W-We can fuck up so many prophecies tonight, Morticia. We’ll can be gods by the end of the week. I-It’s going to be great, Morticia. Y-You’ll be able to date anyone you want. A-Any one you want.”

Actually, Morticia thought as she struggled to right herself, as her back burned against the carpet while her shirt rode up, maybe taking comfort in anything Rick said was still pretty fucked up.

End Part Two.


End file.
